LordMoose wrote:ok thanks, but still can we play as ship yards? not nations

Yes, although some countries make more sense for that than others. Russia and Japan didn't do any exports in the early 1900s. Austria-Hungary and Italy exported cruisers and other small ships but never managed to export battleships (I don't think Austria-Hungary even tried to export one), although they had competitive industries. Skoda designed triple turrets for a Russian contract and 13.8 inch and 16.5 inch guns for Germany.

shipyard players should have an edge in tech and ship building
due to the fact that that's all they do, while with nations a good
deal of there budget gets spent on other stuff. this would help
out the shipyard players by giving nations a reason to use them
instead of just making there own all of the time

Huojin wrote:Basically, can you explain the rules in a more accessible way that doesn't require prior knowledge of other games? Unless the pitch is literally "a forum game version of Rule the Waves" and you intend for only people familiar with Rule the Waves to play, in which case do what you like

The idea is for a navy simulation game. You get to control a navy or maybe a shipyard or shipping line in the rapidly changing world of the early 1900s. There would be some systems for prestige, power, and tension (they would help determine the budgets), and probably commentary on the naval arms race and completion between various ocean liners. High tensions help boost the naval budget, but they also increase the risk of war. Some of the dynamics with prestige and power are probably similar to Balance of Power (which I've never actually played), but I don't really intend for those points to be used to determine a winner at the end of a round. Players can decide for themselves how they've done, and it makes it more fun to be a smaller power too.

As time goes on larger ships with better technologies can be built. Both military ships and passenger lines keep getting better every year. Ships are moving from coal fired reciprocating steam engines to petroleum fired steam turbines, and warships keep getting larger guns in increasingly more sophisticated turrets. Given the rapid pace of technological advancement in the early 1900s ships might be obsolete the moment they are commissioned for service only a few years after being laid down.

The biggest thing to decide on is how combat, races, and other competition would be resolved. Some navy forum games take more of a roleplaying approach and just have people work out simulation happens among themselves. Other approaches would involve various degrees of simulating. There's room for both approaches of course (roughly approximating an outcome and then filling it with details).

LordMoose wrote:ok then I'm also assuming that there will be tech involved?

shipyard players should have an edge in tech and ship building
due to the fact that that's all they do, while with nations a good
deal of there budget gets spent on other stuff. this would help
out the shipyard players by giving nations a reason to use them
instead of just making there own all of the time

That's certainly possible. Some of the larger shipyards were able to do everything in house, such as Vickers and Bethlehem. There were many large shipyards in the major powers too, so there shouldn't be too much concern about running out of historical yards for people to play as.

Also, keep in mind that many countries had to reach out to private firms to help in areas the government yards couldn't cover. Smaller/less developed countries had assistance from foreign companies in designing and building warships, and private shipyards were also a supplement to government naval yards in the larger powers.

To make give shipyards more to do the smaller countries would put out tenders. If something like the historical Dutch naval plan happens it could result in some significant shipyard orders, and some ahistorical ones could happen as well to make things interesting (maybe Portugal decides to purchase some ships, etc.).

I pitched the same proposals on Molotov and ironically they were far more interested in the nuclear idea, so I'll probably have to choose one or the other first. I guess there are more divergent interests across the two boards.